Where The Dark Things Are
by cartoon moomba
Summary: Sora with the yellow eyes of the monsters and a voice, lost in history and thrown-away memories – "One day when you're in trouble..."  Kairi-centric


**Disclaimer: **Kingdom Hearts belongs to Square Enix.

**Summary: **Sora with the yellow eyes of the monsters and a voice, lost in history and thrown-away memories – "One day when you're in trouble..."

**AN: **So I had this saved from some time back, but seeing the scene between Aqua and Kairi in BbS just kind of sparked me to finish this. SPOILERS for BbS!

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Where The Dark Things Are

* * *

Kairi wants to be a Princess when she grows up. She dreams of murky blue skies where every star has its own pulse and she dozes in the atmosphere, _breath_in_breath_out until her mind plays connect the dots beneath paper-thin closed eyelids. She traces patterns in the sky while lying on the beach with her hands buried deep in the warm sand, water lapping at her bare toes and thinks she can hear the islands hum beneath her.

_(i'm alive, the winds almost whisper in her ears.)_

_

* * *

_

She tells Sora she loves the color yellow when, shyly, he brings out a daffodil and gives it to her, his fingers trembling ever so slightly. She smiles and takes it, cradling it close to her chest and gazes deep into his blue lose-yourself eyes so she doesn't lose herself in the shadows - the yellow smiles and yellow sockets trying to bury their fingers into her core.

_(there are monsters under her bed, lurking and plotting her death.)_

_

* * *

_

"Are you scared?" Tidus taunts, smirking, tapping one wooden sword against his tanned leg while she adjusts the grip on hers. The blade weighs down in her sun-kissed twelve-year-old arms and she shifts her feet. On the sidelines caramel hair waves in the breeze as Sora cheers, "_You can do it, Kairi!" _and she lets herself smile, biting her bottom lip until it hurts and charges forward.

(the movement is sluggish but her breath disappears from her lungs – her hair flies out before her and for a second all she can see is _red, red, _and her heart skips with a painful jump and she doesn't know why.)

Tidus jumps out of the way, laughing, and she lets the sword fall to her feet. She giggles, and says, _"Sorry guys, but I don't think this is for me."_

The blonde boy sticks out his tongue to her still back, and she's glad no one can see the blood on her lips as she licks it away.

_(the boogeyman is real and his claws are dripping with red.)_

_

* * *

_

Her nights are full of traces of color as she sleeps. Voices whisper in her ears and she wishes she just _knew what they were saying _because they're warm and familiar and they're screaming, but she always wakes up with sweaty limbs tangled in sheets and tears on her cheeks.

_(we're coming for you, the dreams seem to say.)_

_

* * *

_

She's forever bathed in light. She thinks that it should hurt, being so bright, but really, it doesn't. It's very peaceful here – _where is here, _she catches herself thinking before the words are lost to the abyss – and she wonders if this is the universe.

An eternity of silence passes and a voice whispers in her ear, low and warm and seductive – _"Are you scared, Princess?"_

"I can't be a Princess," she answers back to the voice she doesn't think exists. There's quiet laughter tickling the back of her neck, the breath hot against her skin. She wants to reach up and rub at the spot, but it feels like she's taking a bite out of a caramel candy, sticky and full and completely impossible to move in. Her movements are languidly slow, her body refusing to abide by her brain's commands. She realizes the voice sounds (too much)a lot like her.

"Where am I?" She calls out, forcing her lips to form the words and it almost hurts – and then there's a bright myriad of color rushing by her, and she's gasping for breath in a place full of grey pavement.

_(she thinks she can remember a sora the color of ink and with the yellow eyes of the monsters – monstersmonstersmonsters SORA IS A MONSTER.)_

_

* * *

_

Kairi is a (littlegirlagain)Princess, and the dark things flex their splattered claws and grin.

_(and there's no one to save her now.)_

_

* * *

_

Something that resembles a memory, blurred and stretched and horribly constricted (by her fear by her refusal by her horror) floats up before her eyes as she watches the waves move in a disarray, one-on-top-of-another, bathing her in cold ocean spray; her eyes are half-lidded as she hides her face between her knees and her chest. A voice, cool and mature and maybe even affectionate – a smile without a face, chapped pink lips and rough fingers grasping a stone wound around her neck. A warm light, her heart _thudthudthuding _in her ribcage as she watches it with amazement. _"One day when you're in trouble, the light within you will lead to the light of another." _The voice tilts, softer, more feminine like the person she remembers in her heart's eye. _"Someone to keep you safe."_

She grasps the same stone with numb fingers, and clenches it until her knuckles hurt, wishing-praying-hoping-trying to remember things she doesn't even know she's forgotten.

_(there's a monster with yellow eyes - no, blue, like the sea and the sky and the world and the smile's hair - and he's a monster coming for her with bared fangs and nails and-no, no he's _not,_ because he's her__ savior and he's-__)_

_"Someone to keep you safe."_

_(sora?)  
_


End file.
